Did Starmer speech do enough to end call for him to quit?

Added: 2026-05-11

[00:00:00]Well, this was widely seen as a reset speech providing a response to the poor Labour Labour results in across the country in England, Wales and Scotland at the weekend, but it doesn't seem like the Prime Minister has fully grasped the severity of the situation facing him.

[00:00:14]Instead of giving a frank rundown of what he has got wrong, he has said pointing the finger at Reform UK and the Greens, two parties that actually did quite well at those elections. The Prime Minister says he is taking responsibility for tough election results and said that change can't come quickly enough. But this is a message that voters may have been expecting to hear back in 2024, and it's also clear that the Prime Minister wants to stay in post. He says that Labour won after Tory leadership chaos, and so therefore he will not be walking away.

[00:00:45]I know that people are frustrated by the state of Britain, frustrated by politics, and some people frustrated with me.

[00:00:59]I know I have my doubters, and I know I need to prove them wrong, and I will.

[00:01:06]And has the Prime Minister's speech today won over his critics, Lucy?

[00:01:10]Well, no, not really. At the weekend, a Labour backbencher called Catherine West said that she would start a leadership contest if no one else did so this week.

[00:01:20]Now, today she has watered down her threats. She said initially she would be almost like a stalking horse, essentially to pull other candidates into the ring. Today she's simply looking for him to put pressure on the Prime Minister to set a date for his resignation. So far no cabinet ministers have put their head above the parapet on this, but there is concern junior ministers could, and over 50 MPs from the Labour Party have said that the Prime Minister should go. Brian Leishman is one of four Scottish Labour MPs who says it's time for the Prime Minister to stand down.

[00:01:53]I think his record in the first 2 years or nearly 2 years is now untenable, I'm afraid. He is not the person to lead the Labour Party, he is not the person to lead the United Kingdom. It needs to be a complete culture change and an end to the U-turns. He has shown repeated misjudgements and bad judgement calls.

[00:02:10]The people in charge of the Labour Party are actually the biggest threat because they are abandoning our true values as a political movement. The Labour Party in Scotland and throughout the United Kingdom must get back to its roots of being radical.

[00:02:24]Now, there's a possible successors here, there's Health Secretary Wes Streeting, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, former Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner who took a pop at the government during a union speech today, but so far not yet fired the starting gun. And although he's not an MP, Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham's name is also in the ring.

[00:02:42]Now, his supporters are a wee bit panicked that there could be a contest soon because he's not currently a Westminster MP. And a contest now could potentially benefit Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, but he's not yet made a move. Labour MPs are trying to work out what should be more damaging to the party, uh potentially fractured leadership contest or 3 more years of Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.